City of South Lake Tahoe to drop Part 139 Certification at airport

Even though the airport in South Lake Tahoe hasn't had commercial flights since 2001, they have maintained their Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR)Part 139 Certification, though it is currently inactive.

Since the airport currently does not plan on having commercial flights in the near future, the City Council voted on Tuesday to stop paying for the certification.

In a presentation to Council Tuesday, Michael Hotaling, Sr. VP/Aviation Group Leader of C & S Companies laid out the options, pros and cons to either rejecting or retaining the Part 139 certification. He said the new Master Plan will have a focus on general aviation and not commercial since the public and professional comments in the planning process have all leaned that way. Hotling asked Council why'd they want to continue with the required obligations and cost associated with the 139 certification.

The cost to the city to maintain this would be an additional $120,000 per year plus required training (100 percent of the fire safety personnel would have to train in Salt Lake City), maintenance and record keeping. Airport personnel and Mountin West Aviaition, which is housed at the airport, all said they felt confident the airport would be maintained as if the certification were in place, just wouldn't have to pay the extra costs that come with it.

"We can maintain the standard without the certifiction," said Michael Golden, owner of Mountain West Aviation. "Your savings could be in six figures."

Should the aiport ever want commercial flights again they could reapply, but there may be millions of costs associated with it because of extra runway space that may be required.

The Council voted 5-0 to release the certification. This will not have any affect on the annual Celebrity Golf since those planes are not commercial flights. There may be some pilots that choose not to land at a non-139 airport but it was reported that this would be very minimal, if any at all, since pilots speak to each other and the current conditions of the airport in South Lake Tahoe is well known to be safe and well operated.